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What’s going on?

There is a lot going on out there. Really, too much ground to even begin to cover. It is dizzying, and before I can be compelled, convinced, outraged, or potentially deceived, by any one headline, comment, article, or tweet… I am, barraged by another; Another opinion, another perspective, another version of what is going on… Out there.

Really… it’s too much.

So. I turn it off. And today, I tell you about what is going on… In me.

The plates have been shifting, for some time. The lens has been changing its depth of field, and the image is slowly coming into focus. I can make out shapes and colors and the image, is so close to being sharp… I can sense it.

A couple of years ago I wrote about my ideals. I was in the infant stages of identifying them. I was motivated, but terrified. And, quite honestly, lazy. Some of the ideals I named would require sacrifice in order to strive toward. Some, would require a forfeit of control, of compulsion, and (so I thought) of pleasure and comfort.

Slowly, as I have made small calibrations towards some of these ideals, I have in fact discovered that I forfeit nothing, and gain so much. The more intent I am on my aim, and the more I do to focus in on my subject, the more beauty and clarity I enjoy.

I am reminded of a passage in the in the New Testament… “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.”

It is as though that is our default way of being.

However, it need not be so.

We are inundated with information… worse even… we are inundated with something I do not know the name for… with input, with judgement, with expectations, with voices… with an army, a tidal wave, that does not seek to care for us. It does not love us or want what is best for us. It does not pleasure in our existence, as we are, or as we might become. It seems that it does not pleasure in anything… except for our ear, our attention, our rage, our flimsy adoration, our blind allegiance, our money, our time….

And in exchange, we receive a mind drowning in distraction, unable to focus or be still. We receive an image of self that is comprised solely on comparisons and approval of others… Others, who, unintentionally, have become members of the army… drops of water in the tidal wave. In exchange, we lose time, energy, identity, purpose…. life.

We somehow find comfort in the tidal wave… we bathe in it, meanwhile losing so much. And when we, like myself, get slightly wise to the thing, and seek to slowly emerge, we are afraid that we will miss it… that we can’t live it without it… that we need it.

We frantically wrap our wounds with whatever is offered to us… We mummify ourselves in hopes of binding our broken-ness. To the point of near suffocation. Some of what is offered may have merit, some may even have truth… but we miss the point… our wounds need our attention… We fail to realize, that our wounds, beneath the mounds of good-intentioned gauze, are simply festering. The healing comes from unbinding them. From shedding the shroud. From bravely examining our wounds, uncovered, without antiseptic, bare.

A couple of years ago, I slowly, began to unwrap the gauze. I unraveled, so fearful of what I would find. I tended to some wounds, I kept a few buried… but I am discovering a beautiful, redemptive truth… about myself and about life…It’s sacred. And that realization, is joy. And the further I go on this journey, the more motivated and hell-bent I become on stripping away ANYTHING that would rob me of my joy. I am becoming delighted, not inconvenienced, to hone in on this ideal… Of a truer, way of being… of living.

I am exchanging distraction and anxiety for intention and contentment. I am exchanging moments with screens and technology for moments with my precious people. I am exchanging energy on comparing and critiquing for energy transforming and creating. I am exchanging fear and insecurity for peace and confidence. I am exchanging judgement and self-righteousness for acceptance and personal improvement. I am exchanging doubt and disbelief for an awakening to the sacredness to this life.

And I’m tripping over my own feet, and sometimes taking my eyes off the target, but I’m doing it… I’m making my way out of the path of the tidal wave… I’m taking off the bandages… I’m living, with more honesty and meaning, and less compulsion and waste. I’m doing more of what I want to do, and less of what I don’t want to do. I’m breathing, and loving, and growing, and falling, and I’m loving it…. Truly loving it.